Peter Ryan’s new dinner table drama

By turns a screenwriter, off-Broadway playwright, and local children’s theater author, Peter Ryan found his latest creative sweet spot at the Holiday Inn on Fifth Street.

“This is theater for people who get restless during normal theater,” he said of his latest show, The Club Ritz Caper, which performs in the hotel restaurant during dinnertime. “It’s really 3D theater, happening all around you. Then a crime is committed and you’re asked to solve the crime, like you’re in a detective movie, and you’re the detective.”

A double UVA MFA graduate in fiction and playwriting with a penchant for playing guitar, Ryan developed the show after many years of adapting fairy tales for children to rehearse and perform with after school programs. “I’ve written maybe 80 children’s songs,” he said, “so I thought I might want to do something adult again.”

Adult includes two musical numbers, stage combat, and characters at home in a 1920s speakeasy—mafia dons, a nun, a reporter, a nightclub hostess, and a corrupt cop—couched in a whodunit mystery. The Club Ritz Caper features a rotating cast of local actors billed as the The Cloak Mystery Players, a troupe founded by Ryan andveteran performer Aaron Hale. Show attendees are encouraged to dress in Gatsby-era costumes and engage with the performers.

In some cases, they can’t help but be part of the act. “There’s the crazy sister who’s actually sitting at someone’s table,” he said. “A mechanical spider crawls out from under a bowl. You’ll even have jewelry stolen from you, though I should add that we provide it.” Success is measured not by how accurately the mysteries get solved—though actors do give prizes to the most interesting audience solution—but rather by how entertaining and wholly engaging each production proves to be.

For Ryan, community-powered creativity is the reason he writes scripts in the first place. “Theater is wonderful because you get to be with real people who are speaking the things you wrote,” he said. “You get lots of feedback so you can see how well your writing works. I write movies, too, and film and theater are about getting other people’s voices down. In fiction you have all that description, so you get to have a personal voice, but it’s definitely a longer, lonelier process.”

Ryan’s writing career began in theater, when a show he co-wrote with his UVA professor went to off-Broadway in 1976. “It was intoxicating, my shot at the big time,” he said. “We spent two years raising money to get it on stage, and it was a full equity, $100,000 production. Of course I would probably do everything completely differently this time around.”

Ryan later partnered with a New York-based choreographer to produce an off- Broadway showcase called Karate Tango. When he produced and directed the show for a second time in Charlottesville, local filmmaker Brian Wimer worked to turn it into a movie that’s due out this fall.

“I always had an idea for a two-character musical about a couple who are in show business. Their marriage starts falling apart, and they start playing games with each other to try to get it back together,” Ryan said. “It really shows how hard it is to make it in the arts.”

To that end, the playwright said he hopes The Club Ritz Caper becomes an anchor for local theater. “Boomie Pedersen did a version of this show in Waynesboro last year that was very successful. We’re trying to keep it going into something permanent, and we pay $20 per show to the actors. Ultimately, we hope to found a new theater troupe in Charlottesville. We want to make this something that supports the community.”

The Club Ritz Caper will perform Fridays through Sundays at the Holiday Inn on Fifth Street from May 9 through June 8.

Lauren Hoffman had never heard of Paste Magazine. But in 2006, soon after the release of her most acclaimed record Choreography, the LP’s lead single was included on one of the national magazine’s music samplers alongside the likes of The Hold Steady, Bright Eyes and The Shins. It wasn’t the

Derisive punk pranksters ONWE make their second local appearance this month at the end of a tour that has booked up and down the East Coast as well as four shows at Austin, Texas’ South by Southwest Festival. Since the 2014 release of the single “Unpaid Internship,” the trio has risen to the

Emily Hearn Hourglass/Old Prince Records Be warned: Emily Hearn will be your new favorite singer-songwriter. On her sophomore effort Hearn grows artistically by leaps and bounds with a rich, understated vocal prowess, a sonic palette beyond the country and folk stylings of earlier albums, and

Pulitzer Prize winner Katherine Boo’s nonfiction masterpiece, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, hits the big screen in a live streamed National Theatre production directed by Rufus Norris. Peek behind the curtain of Mumbai’s luxury travel industry to discover the ambitions of a bevy of slum

If you are a parent of a millennial there’s a good chance you can sing along to the tunes of “kindie rock” songstress Laurie Berkner. Her hits “We Are The Dinosaurs,” “Bumblebee (Buzz Buzz)” and “Victor Vito” (made popular on Nick Jr. TV channel) offered a welcome alternative to the catchy

Actor, director and UVA Drama professor Kate Burke is on a mission to change American theater. “I’m very aware of how the American tradition has been influenced by Method acting,” Burke said in a recent interview. “There are some good things about it, but in distorted form it focuses on

Virginia-born and Nashville-based, Nora Jane Struthers makes her country roots come alive on the energetic new album, Wake. The former high school teacher’s first self-produced record crosses Emmylou Harris with Pearl Jam in a collection of percussive panoramas and Southern-fried slide guitar.

John McCutcheon is equal parts musician and storyteller, skilled with a variety of instruments but also engaging when telling tales between tunes. He is a Wisconsin native who called Charlottesville home for years before moving to Smoke Rise, Georgia. He is also an avid community organizer and

Caroline Spence has taken Nashville by storm over the past two years, winning songwriting competitions at the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest, Kerrville Folk Festival and taking American Songwriter Magazine’s 2013 grand prize. The momentum encouraged Spence to crowdsource funding for the full-length

“I feel like an old soul in general. If I’m shopping, I’d rather buy something old and upcycle it or do something that appreciates the value of what it used to be,” said Charlottesville- based alternative photographer Cary Oliva. “Things were just more beautiful back in the day.” The intrigue

If you ever come across a herd of nerds walking around Charlottesville with expensive-looking cameras, do not fear. They’re just photo walkers. And while their numbers are growing, they’re mostly harmless. Charlottesville has at least two groups that regularly hold photo walks, and the

There is a sneaky sort of rebelliousness in Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella—in the way it pushes back against the tide of revisionism and misdirected irony that has overtaken family entertainment in recent years. Sincere instead of sarcastic, elegant instead of flashy, and wishing to enchant

Up-and-coming Southern rockers J. Roddy Walston & The Business are on tour in support of Essential Tremors, an album that borrows its name from a nervous system disorder that’s plagued the band’s frontman throughout his career. Walston said that it makes sense to be more open about his

With a career spanning more than four decades, Lily Tomlin has earned her legendary status in American comedy. After becoming a household name on “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” in the early ’70s, Tomlin went on to starring roles in TV, film and theater. In 2003, the comedienne extraordinaire

Probably all of us have felt it at one point or another. For some, it comes in the form of an obsession with story—the drive to know what happens next, to revel in character and incident and situation, to follow a plot as it arcs and swoops and blossoms (or crashes and implodes). For some […]

Named after the legendary string orchestra that played for the French king at Versailles, Les Violons du Roy transports listeners to the sumptuous courts of 18th century Europe. Led by conductor Mathieu Lussier and pianist Marc-André Hamelin, the 15-member group performs elegant pieces by

With songs that are busy, crowded and accessible, a rock ‘n’ roll diner is the perfect venue for Brooklyn-based indie folk artist Bay Uno’s Charlottesville debut. And while Uno is on the later side of middle age, he’s hip, like a grass-fed burger topped with cheddar and artisan

Kentucky native Ben Sollee is quickly becoming a household name thanks to his innovative songwriting and inventive approach to the cello. Using his bow and his right hand, he slaps and plucks chords creating a full groove that sounds more like a trio than a soloist. His recent credits include

Founded in 1967, Fleetwood Mac has since changed its line-up nine times. Despite inner turmoil, the group practically trademarked the folk rock sound in the 1970s, and made history on the charts with hits like “Go Your Own Way,” “Don’t Stop” and “Dreams.” The core members got back on the road

From start to finish, everything about the Chappie experience is a pleasant surprise. Yes, Neill Blomkamp’s story of a police robot in the near future who becomes sentient can be viewed as a synthesis of Short Circuit and RoboCop, but the film gets the more familiar plot elements out of the way